Women Taking Up Space
<p>Like so many other black female artists Johnson’s work has only recently started to be properly recognised by the Art World establishment despite a decades-long career. She was born in 1959 in Manchester, the daughter of Caribbean immigrants, and began her career as a visual artist in the early 1980s. It was at that time she met other radical young artists including <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/lubaina-himid-ra-elect" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Lubaina Himid</a>, <a href="https://www.keithpiper.info/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Keith Piper</a>, and <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/sonia-boyce-ra" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Sonia Boyce</a> who were beginning to explore issues of race and gender during a period of heightened racial tensions in the UK. These artists were founding members of the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/british-black-arts-movement" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Black British Arts Movement</a>, collaborating and exhibiting together against a backdrop of government rhetoric that was outspokenly anti-immigrant, when relations between the police and black and Asian communities were strained to breaking point, and at a time when fascism was on the rise.</p>
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